So Incredibly Close

"I don't think I can ever eat again!" I laughed as Bailey jumped off the kitchen counter and rubbed her stomach. We had eaten almost everything in her pantry that wasn't canned. I could still taste the pocky we had five minutes ago. After we had finished our pieces of bread, we went nuts in her kitchen looking for anything that tasted good. So far we had eaten; All Dressed chips - right out of the bag, Mr. Noodles - without the water, some kind of chocolate cake thing - the ones that you usually buy at Price Choppers or Walmart with the little icing design on them, pocky- nothing better than biscuits dipped in chocolate, and of course the bread- which we tried to finish but only ended up eating a quarter of the loaf. Needless to say, we were stuffed.

All of the food and the eating reminded me of the time that my dad took me out to this Chinese buffet when I was younger. I can't place the name exactly, but I remember hating Chinese food and filling my plate with every possible food that was more Canadian than anything. I was even smart and made my own poutine. I stuffed the fries on my plate, went over to the gravy and poured it over top, and then grabbed a couple squares of cheese and broke it up once I sat down. I had about three plates full of food in the end, and my dad just sat there staring at me like I was strangest thing to ever come across him. I couldn't finish my food because I was so full, and ended up shoving it all on his plate for him to eat, but something about that day always makes me smile.

Maybe it was the way my dad was always wiping my face with the napkin and shaking his head at me, all while wearing a great big smile on his. Maybe it was because he kept turning to me and saying, "you're going to love Chinese food one day and regret eating fries in a place like this." He was always joking around with me, and even though I was only seven years old, he was right. I grew up and now I love Chinese food. I know that most parents say that their kids are going to grow up and eventually like something they didn't use to, but for me, that was my dad proving to me that he knew a little bit more about me than my mom did, even more than I did. We never go out or even order in Chinese food anymore. It seems kind of ironic that when I didn't like it, we always had it, and now I do like it, and we never have it. Maybe I should have sucked it up and gave up the poutine for an egg roll or chicken ball.

"Yeah right! In ten minutes you'll be hungry again." I said leaning against her fridge. We both smiled knowing it was true. It was strange how the body worked. You could be full, but still want to keep eating. I blame it on the smell of everything. The better something smells to you, the more you want to keep eating even after you know you can't anymore.

"There better be some food left in that kitchen. I can see your shoes and I can smell food so there is no way you two aren't in there right now." That's all it took. That semi irritated, beautiful voice booming from the bottom of the stairs had my heart beating faster and faster with every passing second. I heard him walk towards the kitchen and kept reminding myself that I had to be cool. I've known him since I was four so it usually wasn't too hard to fake it, but sometimes I slipped up and could feel my face start to go red. I was really hoping that I wasn't slipping up right now.

It was only a few seconds before he appeared in the kitchen. His blue eyes, that looked a little bit like the ocean right now, looking at me as he smiled and gave a little head nod before turning to face his sister. Bailey gave him a half smile before taking some pocky from the plastic, silver bag sitting on the counter and eating them without realizing. It was so strange what our bodies did without us noticing.

"Pierce, Pierce, Pierce," she said in a mocking tone. He cocked an eyebrow at her and crossed his arms. His arms; they looked so muscular and firm. I always had the urge to hug him whenever he was around. He was wearing a thin v-neck hoodie that looked so good on his body. His straight leg jeans fit so perfectly on his legs, especially with the way they looked fitted but loose at the same time. I could picture him going out and putting on his converse that would complete the whole outfit. He was just so good looking. Of course I can't speak for everyone when I say that because we all have different tastes, but this boy, man was he ever my type.

"What?" You could hear the irritation building in his voice. Pierce and Bailey never really get along. They're completely different people. One of the only things they had in common was the fact that they loved to argue; especially with each other. He's a year older than Bailey and I and sure he looks out for her when he needs to, but he doesn't talk to her as much as my brother talks to me. Their family is always happy, but in a sense where their system or routine works for them. Dustin and Pierce are friends though. Both in the same classes at school, and both always at the same parties. They're close friends, not best, but definitely close. Another reason for never telling Pierce how I feel.

The more I think about it, which is basically everyday, the more I realize that I'll never have the guts. It always struck me as weird with the way people could grow up with each other and know each other so well, and still have secrets the other person doesn't know about. I only knew Pierce through association with Bailey though, and no matter how long I've known him, I'm considered Bailey's friend to everyone elses' eyes; not his. Though, I consider him my friend.

He probably only thinks of me as a younger sister, Bailey's twin. Fraternal, of course. Bailey and I don't look alike in any way. My long blonde hair doesn't come close to matching her medium length chestnut colour - the same colour of Pierce's hair, her lips are a little bit thinner than mine, and she has tiny freckles around the edge of her nose. She's also not as chesty, and her skin tone is a little darker than mine. She's beautiful, and I'm just average.

"You better be nice to me if you want some freshly baked bread. Mom made it." Bailey picked up the pan that had cooled down and backed away from him a little bit. You could tell that he didn't care much about the bread, he was just trying to annoy her. He just shrugged and then turned to face me. I could feel the butterflies attacking my stomach, but I tried to ignore them. Trying to ignore butterflies this intense was like trying to ignore a crying baby while watching your favourite show; it just wasn't happening. I was trying though, so it still counted.

"My lady, will you be so kind as to let me get to that fridge you're blocking?" His smirk when he said that had my whole stomach in full mode butterfly attack. It was like he knew how I felt and insisted on saying and doing all of the right things. He was so close that I could reach out and kiss him if I wanted to, but I couldn't. So I smiled at him and moved out of the way.

"Oh god, would you stop flirting with my friend all the time. It's weird and she's practically family." Another reason I couldn't tell Bailey. She flips out at Pierce if he even glances in the direction of one of her friends. If I told her she'd do one of two things. She'd either laugh in my face, or tell me that she doesn't want me to date him. And if she did tell me not to date him, I wouldn't even go near him anymore. Not that he'd ever be interested in me, this is just for theoretical purposes.

"Why? How do you know she doesn't love it?" He said putting his arm around my waste just to piss Bailey off. Oh, how I ever did love it. I really hoped that he couldn't feel my heart pounding so hard, basically trying to burst through my chest. He didn't seem to realize and so I took this opportunity to play along, mostly just for a reason to touch him.

"Yeah, how do you know?" I said wrapping my arm around Pierce and winking at both him and Bailey. She just huffed and stuffed more Pocky into her mouth. Pierce winked back at me and then we both bust out laughing when we looked back over at Bailey's face. It was a mixture of anger, disgust, and a temptation to laugh all with a bunch of pocky bulging at the side of her cheek. I laughed because the face she made was funny, not because of the reason behind making the face.

"Oh come on, you know we're just kidding." Pierce removed his arm from my waste and scruffed up my hair with his hand. I hated it when he did that. He made me feel like a three year old; one with an older brother who doesn't want to play the game you request and then scruffs up your hair and says "next time", even though you knew there was never going to be a next time.

It made me think of the time that Dustin and I went to the park with my dad when we were around 5 and 6. I used to love climbing on top of the big orange tunnel when we played grounders because he could never catch me up there. We didn't only play just us two, we always had a bunch of kids playing as well. One time this girl I was friends with - her name was Lisa something or other - ran across the tunnel while I was on it during a game of grounders. I told her repeatedly not to do it, but she did it anyways. All it took was her foot to slip and she was going down, except I ended up going down with her too because she insisted on grabbing my leg. Nothing was broken, I only had a bruise but when my brother ran over to me and made sure I was alright, he placed his hand on top of my head and messed up my hair, saying a quick "you can tough it out" before running away to play again.

Dustin and I had a lot of times together where one of us was always hurt. The time he broke his arm trying to skateboard for the first time or the time I broke my foot when I dropped a bowling ball on it. Little things like that, that we always seemed to have to "tough it out" over. My parents were usually around somewhere laughing and talking about everything. This was before my mom realized that we were no longer that important anymore.

I missed the days when my family lived together. I don't mean the last part where the house was always filled with awkward silences and whispers, and it hardly felt like a home. I mean the days when my mom would make my dad coffee every morning and discuss the paper with him, the days when my mom would take Dustin and I shopping with her and buy us a chocolate bar if we stopped being such a nuisance, the days we all sat at the same table for dinner and were always smiling. Those days - the ones I will never get back - are the days I miss the most.

"Right, kiddo?" Another thing I hated to hear, especially from Pierce Beckett's mouth. 'Kiddo' - the word only people who think of you as nothing more than a friend or a person in their family use. He could have punched me in the face and it would have bothered me less. I just had to move on with my fantasy of being with Pierce in my head. Maybe I'd meet someone else.

"Yeah Bailey, he's like my brother." Lie. It sounded so convincing though that I almost had myself believing it... almost. The thing with having a secret, any secret, is that no matter how much you want to tell someone, anyone, you just can't. And the more you keep it inside, the more it bothers you. So then you start to lie. To everyone, even to yourself because you don't want to believe it. This was one of those secrets where everything I said about Pierce to Bailey was a lie. A complete, horrible, far off lie, and I hated it.

The only thing I ever kept from Bailey before was when we were in third grade and Owen Mightun didn't give her a valentines day card. She had this huge crush on Owen and he used to always hangout with her at recess. On Valentines day that year, Owen came up to me and handed me a card at recess. It had a big red heart on it with drawn confetti, and when you flipped it over it said "To a very special someone. Be mine." Owen never made one for Bailey and so when we all got inside I quickly scratched out my name on the card and wrote in Bailey's. I made it look like his writing as well as I could - which wasn't that hard considering that we were in grade three and everyone's writing was a bit on the horrible side - and then I handed it to her. I knew she would be devastated if she hadn't gotten one from him and so I knew it would make her happy to have it. When she asked about the scratched out space where my name used to be I told her that his pen probably ran out and he was trying to get it to work again. Bailey stopped liking Owen after that year because he became this weird and different person, but I still thought of him the same way. He was sweet and nice, and he always knew how to make you smile. I see him from time to time at school and he seems to always be happy, but who knows right? You can't know a person's life story by looking at the way they carry themselves, it's just impossible.

"Anyways, I'm out. I'm thinking that I'm going to catch a party tonight. Don't go in my room or I'll kill you," Bailey raised her eyebrow at him and taunted him with her 'thanks for the idea' look. He stared at her without blinking, " I mean it." I watched him walk out of the kitchen without taking any food from the fridge. I moved out of the way for nothing. On top of that, I was taunted by fate basically shouting at me that I'm just a part of the family to Pierce.

It was just Bailey and I in the kitchen again, Pierce's footsteps disappearing down the hall. Bailey was studying the design on her counter still munching on the pocky. I walked over and grabbed two and ate them. They were so heavenly, why must pocky taste this good and be bad for you? It drove me up the wall.

I wasn't sure what Bailey and I were doing tonight, but I was pretty sure it consisted of a sleepover and a whole night of talking. We hardly went to parties, especially the ones Pierce went to. Bailey didn't want to be known as his younger sister because she thought he was strange and so she tried to stay clear of him. We also hardly drank alcohol and didn't really see a point in going to one. The people were always sex-craved teenagers looking for a good time at a place with many pickings anyways, definitely now our scene.

The last party Bailey and I went to was last year's end of the year party at Nick Bryant's cottage, which to me looks more like a mansion. He's the richest person at our school and he always hosts the big end of the year bash because he has the most available space for everyone to go at one time. Bailey and I ended up in this room where a bunch of guys were smoking up and talking about how great it would be to have sex with every girl in the cottage. We were disgusted with the things they were saying but we didn't leave the room. Not even when one of the guys turned to us and told us to sit down, or when they told us to take our clothes off, they even started coming towards us but that's as far as they got before Pierce and his friend Stephen came in and practically dragged us out of the room. We obviously weren't going to take our clothes off, but anything could have happened to us against our will in there. After that we went home and ordered pizza, swearing to never enter strange rooms in houses we don't know that well ever again. Parties were barely an option for us anymore and without even saying it out loud we already knew our plans for tonight.